Elin Hilderbrand - The Blue Bistro

“Thanks for coming, thanks for coming,” Holt said. He pumped Duncan’s hand and kissed Caren on the cheek. “And you brought Adrienne. Good for you. This boat needs more pretty women.”

Adrienne smiled. “Thanks for inviting us,” she said, but Holt Millman didn’t hear. He was calling below deck for “Drinks, more drinks,” ushering Duncan forward, and introducing the rest of the guests with a sweep of his arm. There were five other people on the boat, some of whom Adrienne recognized. The woman who cut Thatcher’s hair sat on a cushioned bench in the cockpit talking to the hostess from 21 Federal. There were two older bond-trader type men who rose to greet Duncan and ask him about his handicap. And out on the bow of the boat was a stunning blond woman in a red bikini. She sat up and waved at Adrienne; it was Cat, the world’s most glamorous electrician.

“Cat is everywhere,” Adrienne murmured to Caren.

“She could be a model,” Caren said. “If she weren’t busy wiring Millman’s home theater.”

Caren joined Duncan’s conversation with the bond traders, leaving Adrienne to either sit alone or talk to the hostess and Thatcher’s hairdresser. While the first option was infinitely preferable, the hostess-who must have been the social director for her sorority in college-waved Adrienne over.

“Come sit with us!” she called. She moved her tiny butt a fraction of an inch to indicate that she was making room. Holt popped up the stairs with a tray of pink frosty drinks. He held the tray out to Adrienne.

“This is my own recipe,” he said. “It’s called a Kelsey. I keep trying to get Duncan to make them at the restaurant.”

Duncan lifted his head from his other conversation. “No blender drinks,” he said. “Sorry.”

Holt Millman laughed with his head thrown back, exposing his tan throat. Adrienne guessed he was nearing seventy, yet she sensed he went to great lengths and expense to keep himself looking younger. Spa treatments to erase the wrinkles from his face and neck and the like.

Adrienne accepted a drink and sat next to the hostess from 21. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Adrienne.”

The hostess clapped her hands. “We know who you are,” she said. “Because remember, I seated you? When you were on your date with Thatcher?”

The hairdresser piped in. “I just love Thatch,” she said. “That red-gold hair. I have clients who would sell their souls for hair that color.”

“Have you two been dating long?” the hostess asked.

“We’re not dating,” Adrienne said. “It was a business dinner.”

“Oh, stop,” the hairdresser said. “I cut his hair that very afternoon and he told me he had a hot date. It didn’t sound like business to me.”

“Well, it was business,” Adrienne said. She sipped her drink. It was delicious-watermelon, strawberry, club soda, and what she thought must be vodka. It went straight to her head. She removed her T-shirt so that she was in her bikini top and shorts. The sun felt terrific. Hot date? She was relieved when the motor revved and the captain steered them out of the harbor.

One hour and three Kelsey drinks later, Adrienne was happier. Caren had rescued her and now Adrienne, Caren, and Cat were lying in their bikinis on the teak deck near the bow. Above their heads the sails rumbled, the ropes snapped, and a crew of young men in green shirts like Holt’s moved about-tightening, loosening, using jargon like “foredeck” and “power winches.” Nantucket was a blur of green and gray in the distance. A young woman with an English accent brought a basket of wraps and refills for their drinks. The sandwiches were beautiful pinwheels of color: avocado, tomato and bacon, goat cheese and roasted red pepper, roast beef, cucumber, and horseradish cream. Forget Fiona, Adrienne thought. She was never getting off this boat.

Four drinks, five drinks. Then somehow, Adrienne found herself sitting in the cockpit with the rest of the guests passing around a joint. Adrienne smoked rarely but she was so relaxed that she didn’t even blink. Everyone smoked except for Holt Millman, who just beamed as though nothing pleased him more than young people smoking marijuana on his boat. When Adrienne looked at him again, she thought maybe he was closer to sixty.

She went below deck for the first time a while later in search of the bathroom, and since she was the only one underneath (aside from whatever sandwich genius was working in the galley) she took a look around. There was a living room with an overstuffed sofa and chairs and a wall lined with books that were held in place by a brass rail. There was a formal dining room with a bouquet of Asiatic lilies and pink roses on the oval table, and eight Windsor chairs, and the promised china in cabinets. There were a couple of small sleeping quarters, the beds decked out in Frette linens. And then Adrienne peeked quickly-because she was pressing her luck snooping around like this-into the master suite. A queen-size bed with a green silk spread, photographs of Holt Millman with Bill Gates, Holt Millman with Bill Clinton, Holt Millman with Elton John, and a framed article from Time about Holt Millman and his myriad companies. The article had been written by Drew Amman-Keller.

“Adrienne.”

Adrienne gasped; she’d been caught. Holt Millman himself stood in the doorway. This was, no doubt, the kind of situation that Adrienne’s father composed in his mind, the kind that turned his hair silver: Adrienne, wearing only a bikini, standing in the bedroom of Holt Millman’s yacht.

The pot made her feel like laughing; she bit her lip. “Sorry,” she said. “I was looking for the bathroom.”

“Use mine,” he said. He opened a door that Adrienne had thought was a closet, but it was the master bath. Marble, of course, with the Jacuzzi.

“Okay,” she said. “Thanks.”

She closed the door behind her and peed-she really had to go-looking at the stacks of fluffy green towels and at the glassed-in shower. She felt the boat listing from side to side. She washed her hands with one of the cakes of sailboat-shaped soap and checked her teeth, hoping and praying that by the time she opened the door, Holt Millman would be gone. But he was right there, sitting on the edge of the bed, talking to someone on his cell phone. When she emerged, he snapped the phone shut.

“I just made a dinner reservation for two, tonight, eight o’clock, at the Wauwinet,” he said. “I hope you’ll join me.”

Adrienne stared at him, unwillingly imagining a woman smoothing essence of sea cucumber on Holt Millman’s neck to keep it taut. She wanted to laugh. She bowed her head. This was the eleventh richest man in the United States, asking her on a date.

“I can’t,” she said. “I have to work.”

“Work?” he said, as though he’d never heard of the word. “Okay, then, what night are you free?”

The answer was Wednesday night, but Adrienne couldn’t bring herself to tell him. She wished like hell that she was up on deck lying safely between Caren and Cat, picking at the leftover wraps, maybe indulging in one more cocktail since her mouth was dry and ashy.

“I’m dating someone,” she said. And in her alcohol-saturated, drug-induced state, she thought, I’m dating Thatch.

Holt Millman didn’t get to be so successful by being a jerk or by preying on young women in bikinis whom he found nosing around his personal quarters. He was, at all times, a model of graciousness. “Whoever he is, he is one lucky man,” Holt said. He offered Adrienne his arm and escorted her up the stairs, back into the sun.

When Adrienne woke up from her nap, it was four o’clock, and the girl with the English accent was offering her a cold Coca-Cola, which Adrienne immediately recognized as the answer to her prayers. She had fallen asleep on her stomach and she could tell just from sitting up that her back was burned. She knocked back half the Coke and went in search of Caren and Duncan, whom she found standing at the stern on either side of the flapping Rhode Island flag. They were tan and laughing; they looked like models in a Tommy Hilfiger ad. Adrienne caught Caren’s eye and pointed to her running watch. It was five after four, they were zero feet above sea level, and Nantucket was still a smudge on the horizon. Caren shrugged. Nonchalance was her middle name. Adrienne, on the other hand, was a realist. If they headed back now they might be in the harbor in half an hour. Leaving twenty-five minutes to drop Duncan off, get home, change (there would be no time for a shower), and get to work. But who was she kidding? They were going to be late.